Merril is hosting Meeting the Bar in the dVerse Poets Pub ~ we are using the "cherita" poetry form today!
the Gilded Age
oh how I would have embraced fashion
the bows, frills, lace, intricate beadwork
corsets guaranteed to cinch my waist
décolletage with shoulders exposed
no mere ornament, a lady of substance
If only that kind of fashion would suit me, Helen! I’m sticking to what I know.
ReplyDeleteYou would look wonderful, Helen! I think I'd rather not have the corset. And of course, the ladies who dressed like that also had maids to help them!
ReplyDeleteI bet you would look beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI, on the other hand, would look like a little doll with a crocheted dress to cover the toilet roll.
I fear it would not be very comfy...
ReplyDeleteBRavo!!! Luv it
ReplyDeleteMuch♡love
Helen, your last line won my heart.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been beautiful, indeed, but my ancestors would not have been welcome at an event like that. We wouldn’t even have been allowed to work in the kitchen dish pit. It is wonderful how times have changed. Thank you for your beautiful poem.
ReplyDeleteIn England, if well connected, they might have been in the receiving line.
DeleteAnd the cousins of the host, if poor, might have been lucky to get work in the kitchen.
Why waste resentment on the distant past?
You would look beautiful Helen. Love the outfit for the lady of substance.
ReplyDeleteBeauty is non-negotiable, and fantasy brings lovely pause for thought...there is also the cavalier bowing and straight backs of those in impeccable uniform full of socially polite admiration, with all cultural etiquette of the time to highlight the statuesque feminity.
ReplyDeleteAin
Deletehaha - I think this sound more glamours than it truly was. The clothes so constraining. But, I think you would have looked marvelous. I do love the time period costumes on the show.
ReplyDeleteSo beautiful and yet so torturous! Aghhh, the things we do. I love your humor Helen 🥰
ReplyDeleteI am sure you would have looked fabulous, Helen!! A great poem and visual.
ReplyDeleteYou would have rocked it, without the cinched waist.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I can just see you revelling in all that, and carrying it off with a swish and a twirl, to the manner born.
ReplyDeletePerfect Helen !😃
ReplyDeleteI've danced in a waist-cinched dress that let my date span my waist with his two hands, a big Victorian boasting point. The trick is to date a man with big hands! The dress was not uncomfortable for an hour or two. The Victorian conventions, and the way they aimed desperately at avoiding diseases that killed people just the same, would have been unbearable if people had known any other way to live--I think.
ReplyDeletePK
Helen, I can totally picture you owning that Gilded Age look—graceful, bold, and anything but ornamental.
ReplyDeleteMuch love,
David
SkepticsKaddish.com